The Spiritual Meaning Of Political Systems

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings, my beloved friends. May the blessings given touch the deepest part of your being, so that you will know forever the joy of your innermost truth; so that you will lose the fear of your innermost truth; so that your commitment to all of your being will be ever more anchored in your total devotion to your path.

You increasingly find that experiencing the pain that you wanted to avoid makes room for joy -- a joy that could never have come if the pain had not been met first. You increasingly find that when you do not fear, and therefore you do not avoid, the negativity, the distortion, and the destructiveness that are only a small part of your being, then a divine alchemy takes place that produces integration and the transformation of your total being in an ever deepening process. Individually more and more of you have found this to be so, even though the hurdles at times seemed too great. They always seem much greater than they actually are. As more of you individually overcome your inner obstructions, your futile fears, and your unnecessary resistance, so does your community grow in strength, in realistic groundedness, in joyousness, and in abundance.

For this last lecture of the year I have announced a somewhat unusual topic, but you will see that it fits in with the sequence of lectures and has its integral meaning in your process, both as individuals and as a community. The topic is the spiritual meaning of political systems. I will speak about the best known political systems on your earth plane at this point in your evolution, in your history. I shall explain the divine origin of each of these systems and the distortion in each. Then I will show you how every one of these systems, in their divine as well as in their distorted manifestations, is a reality of man's internal world. From there we shall proceed to gain a clearer vision of New Age politics.

Let us take first a by now already obsolete, but still known system in your world and let us classify it in one category as monarchy and feudalism. What are the divine origins of this format and what are its distortions? The divine meaning and origin, the inner truth of these systems, is to be found in certain highly developed human beings who are fully aware of their responsibility. Development always carries responsibility. Those who are willing to shoulder these responsibilities according to divine, eternal law and commensurate with their commitment to their task will feel that it is their right to enjoy the accompanying privileges. A person who is unwilling to assume such responsibilities has not rightfullly earned these privileges. He either feels too guilty to even really want them, or he is so rebellious that he wants to steal them. Then he tries to justify this by claiming that those who have earned them are unfair and abusive. Even if authority is being abused, those who are unwilling to assume the demanding task of leadership are not right to rebel. For they will not need to rebel if they fulfill the conditions that entitle them to the envied and coveted privileges. These are envied only when the price is not being paid.

Those who give themselves fully to their tasks as the leaders of nations and of governments discharge themselves of their responsibility according to divine law. They lead and guide those who do not wish to take on the responsibility -- a responsibility which they consider a chore -- of such a task, for they know that such a task consists of many hardships, as well as of privileges. Leadership requires a lot of self-discipline that the self-indulgent individuals do not desire to exert. The often necessary voluntary giving up of an immediate gratification is totally rejected by those who follow but who -- often simultaneously -- resent those who lead. Nor do they wish to assume the risk of exposure, the risk of criticism, the risk of slander, and the risk of hostility that those in the limelight must be strong enough to endure. It is certainly easier to follow than it is to lead. In other words, to be an ordinary citizen than the leader of a nation. The follower can afford to be lazy, even if this laziness is not necessarily physical. It can be laziness of the mind, laziness of the spirit, laziness of courage, laziness of the heart.

So leaders create a following and, in their total devotion to their task, give of their best. They use their power for the good of all. They do not shun personal inconvenience in connection with their task. This is, broadly speaking, the divine reality contained in the regime of monarchy.

It is easy to see how this can be distorted by ruthless, selfish, irresponsible human beings who abuse their power. In other words, who use it either for their own material gain or in order to gain power. Such people obstruct the unfoldment of justice, of law, of beauty, of fairness, and of divine intercession. The true leader -- the monarch if you will -- who is at the helm of a ship is always a channel for divine inspiration. If that inspiration is not sought and is not being put above all else, then the result is abuse.

When these systems appeared in your earth world, then this was their innate message. They appeared when humanity was either not able, not willing, or not developed enough to assume the responsibility for true self-rulership. Therefore, people needed guidance. I do not have to go into detail to show how these roles were not always fulfilled, even though at first highly developed beings came into these incarnations to fulfill such tasks. Sooner or later the temptations proved too much. Others followed who took the rulership either by power or by manipulation and who then abused their position and took advantage of their power.

How does this political system exist in the inner world of man? Again, this is not too difficult to see, my friends. You have discovered that there is in every human being -- in some more strongly expressed, in others less manifest -- a talent to be a leader in one way or another. In other words, a talent to assume responsibilities and to serve a cause, no matter how buried this talent may be at first. These dormant talents can always be awakened from their dormant state. When they are, then they eventually bring the individual to a Path such as this. If this talent is not cultivated, then you will be a follower who has fewer rights and fewer privileges. It is as you wish. If you do not wish the higher risk of assuming the responsibility to lead, to stand in an exposed place as it were -- and to risk everything that goes with it -- for the purpose of serving a higher cause, then you have no right to complain when others do this job. I want to emphasize that this might apply to very subtle expressions and not necessarily manifest in overt leadership, statesmanship or such. You can be a teacher in school, you can supervise others in an office, you can do any task on earth and be, within its framework, either a leader or a follower. Both roles have their value and both carry their distinct differences. But when the follower resists his innate talent to become a leader in his own right, wherever his place may be, and when he rebels against the leadership that he refuses to assume because he is too lazy, too fearful, too selfish, and too self-indulgent, then he commits as grave an injustice and as great a dishonesty as the ruler who abuses his power.

Regardless of where your talents lie, you do contain the possibility of higher rulership in the best sense of the word. Rulership is not just a political expression. It can be expressed in every area of life. First of all, this expression of governing -- of leadership, of rulership -- must be assumed toward yourself if it is to be truly the expression of an integrated process. It means the ability to exert a certain amount of discipline, of firmness, of strength, of not succumbing to the temptation to indulge. The weak ruler who does not wish to be bothered, and who therefore dispenses with this necessary healthy discipline, is just as much at fault -- and does just as much damage -- as he who is overly severe, hard, and closed to the feelings of the heart -- in other words, who has no compassion -- and who never relaxes his domination. Neither of the two can find the balance between discipline and relaxation and have the intuitive knowing of when the one is appropriate and when the other is appropriate.

Discipline cannot be used toward others in a fair and balanced way if it is not first used toward the self. If it only exists toward others while the self indulges (as many rulers have done and are still doing), then a hurtful imbalance comes about. Therefore you now learn on your path primarily -- and with an apparent over-emphasis -- about self-discipline. True self-purification and transformation on this path is impossible unless this self-discipline is acquired and is used constantly against the ever lurking resistance to moving and to overcoming. Only when this resistance has been mastered to a considerable degree does the leadership of others evolve organically. For instance, helpership, teaching, and responsible roles in the community.

Within your own soul system both aspects exist: the monarch or the leader and the follower or the citizen without responsibility. The one is rich, the other is poor. The one has rights, the other does not. How do you apportion your energies and your direction in choosing what to cultivate on the road of your unfoldment, on your path? Do you abuse this double principle in you? If one is abused, then the other must be abused too, for they are two parts of one whole. How do you react toward the attitude in you that wishes to cheat; toward the attitude in you that wants to get the results without earning them; toward the attitude in you that wishes to have it as easy as possible; and toward the attitude in you that wishes to get free, gratuitous gratifications that are not being earned by honesty and by everything that a human being is capable of giving to the things he wants to earn? If that discipline is being followed through within, then you earn authority in the best sense of the word in your immediate environment. Then the monarch principle within your soul is acting harmoniously, meaningfully, and appropriately toward the responsible citizen principle within you.

Then this attitude can unfold toward the outer environment on a firm ground that is difficult to shake. This is how monarchy and feudalism are in the divine sense, not in the abused sense. And this must extend -- as all cellular growth proceeds -- from the inside to the outside. You always start with yourself. When sufficient self-rulership has been established by you, then a small sphere of leadership will arise naturally, almost without your outer intention, as it were. It grows just as a tree grows, in whatever field you activate your innate talents and you fulfill your task. As your stature grows due to your ongoing development, the sphere of your influence and of your positive power will widen. It will encompass more followers. A beautiful, harmonious, organic monarchy is then a divine expression in your personal life that in some cases can also extend into public life, provided it is so ordained. This is the model for the feudal, for the monarchical political system which is part of the scheme of all things.

The second category is also part of the scheme of all things. Let us take both socialism and communism as one category. Let us see what the divine expression and the inner meaning is in these systems. It should not be too difficult for you to see this. The idea here is equality, justice, and fairness for all. It may seem a contradiction if I say that some entities are more developed than others. In other words, that some are stronger, that some are more courageous, that some are better equipped for, and therefore more deserving of, the privileged position of leading a country, a society, a civilization, a group of individuals, a business, or whatever than others. In that sense they are not equal, of course. Is this really a contradiction? I should say not. But, owing to the dualistic split in the human consciousness, often something appears to be a contradiction which is not a contradiction at all.

So it is simultaneously true that all men are created equal, and also that they are not equal in their expression, not equal in their development, not equal in their will direction, not equal in the choices they make every day and every hour of their lives. Men are unequal in their feelings, unequal in their thoughts, unequal in their decisions, and unequal in their actions. You would say that an adult and a child are equal as far as their innate values are concerned. But they are certainly not equal in their life expressions. So, there is no contradiction in saying that they are both equal and unequal.

The form of government in which all are equalized -- in other words, Communism -- was a reaction to the abuse of monarchy and feudalism. The inequality which is characteristic of monarchy and feudalism was being abused. So, another facet of divine truth had to come to countermand the abuse of truth in the first format under discussion here. But with the second system, too, abuse set in, as it is bound to when one truth seems to be a contradiction to another truth. With such exclusiveness the dualistic mind destroys the inner unity that exists in all your contradictions. A tight rope of infringements diminishes the new truth. The equality becomes abused and a uniformity sets in that is no longer in keeping with the reality of the human unfoldment and the divergence and the variety of human expressions and of human development. Unfairness, uniformity, and conformism supersede first the free unfoldment and then the expression of choice, of talent, and of development.

How does this appear in the inner soul of man? In other words, what is the inner reality of this form of government? In its divine expression the human soul knows that no matter how distorted he may be, every human being is a divine manifestation. As such, he is truly equal to him on that deepest level. When this is perceived, then an underlying sanity and love will make it possible to also perceive and determine the differences of expressions. On the outer level of expression there obviously is no equality. For he who responsibly fulfills his task in the universe and who lives according to these laws is not equal in his expressions to him who abuses the laws selfishly, who distorts them according to his self-serving purposes -- either individually or in political life -- and who does not care if his actions and his attitudes affect others adversely. This abuse of the laws may exist either on a more obvious level, or it may be a subtle but nonetheless obvious manifestation. When an individual denies divine reality, either within or without, then it would be absurd to claim that he is equal to those who nurture and protect divine truth and love.

This inequality can be known truthfully and creatively only when one also knows the underlying equality of all divine life. And that is the inner expression, in its purity, of the outer political expression of socialism or communism.

Now let us look at a third popular form of government, and that is capitalistic democracy, as you know it in this land. Its divine manifestation and its meaning are the total freedom of expression and the use of divine abundance according to personal investment. Yet, at the same time, in its divine manifestation it makes room for caring for those who are neither able nor -- on a deeeper level -- willing to undertake the responsibility for themselves. This system does not proclaim that such people should reap the same benefits as those who invest their whole being into life. Nor does it exploit those people in order to justify the ruler's power drive. This form of government is the nearest expression of the New Age fusion of duality. Here you can sense the fusion of the two other systems I was talking about, at least to some degree. It is a much more mature form of government than any of the other two categories.

The distortion of this form of government is obvious in that the abuse of power by the few stronger, more willful individuals may then impose disadvantages on those who are not willing to stand on their own feet. These disadvantages would go above and beyond the natural, lawful result of their refusal to fend for themselves in order to take on a parasitic role at the expense of others. But in this distortion of the third system, the exploiters become parasites in another sense, by using those tho want to use them. Rather than helping them to awaken through fair and commensurate dispositions, they play right into the rationalizations of those who are lazy and who cheat, thereby making their excuses seem valid by giving a seeming justification to their argument that "it is an unfair world they live in and that they who are less greedy are victimized by the greedy."

Both extremes can abuse this system. The socialistically minded can become more parasitic and use the power structure as an excuse. The strong and diligent ones, who risk and who invest of themselves, can abuse the system by justifying their greed and their power drive with the actual parasitic nature of the lazy ones. In other words, in this system -- since it is a fusion of the former two categories -- you also find a negative fusion of both distortions. You can observe this in various ways in your political life if you look at the public expression. The expression of both categories contains more possibility for abuse in this system because this system offers more possibility for a healthy fusion of two apparent opposites. The other two categories offer less freedom and, to a degree, less possibility for abuse. On one level this may seem untrue. And yet it is untrue. Yet on another level it is true. The more development and the more freedom, the greater are the danger of abuse and the danger of distortion.

Freedom always contains more possibility of abuse. This is a universal reality within the soul, as well as outside, in man's expression. When the abuse comes, then the painful confusion of dualism arises and the pendulum must swing in the opposite direction. So, within your soul you may swing from being submissive to being a rebel. In man's political expression, the systems swing from authoritarianism of one form or another to an overly permissive system that allows the parasite to sentimentalize his cause. And so it goes back and forth throughout the centuries until the margin of the swing of the pendulum becomes narrower and the point of the fusion is approached. Democratic capitalism or capitalistic democracy is such an expression. But if dispositions are being made from theory only, rather than by establishing a channel so as to perceive the divine will and the divine law, then the possibility for error, for distortion, and for abuse will always be present.

This principle applies to man's inner world. When you are given the freedom to responsibly run your life, then it is easy to abuse this freedom, unless you constantly confront your real motives -- which are usually hidden -- conscientiously. My friends, how much maturity is needed to abstain from the temptation to abuse freedom! How much self-discipline is needed that you will not do so. And how much fairness is needed that you will not do so. At the same time you also need the maturity, the strength, and the fairness to not become a burden to your fellow men by responsibly standing on your own feet, which, again, in this form or system, can be easily abused. This temptation always exists in your personal life, as it does in your public life and in your political life. Wen you consistently yield to this temptation, then you draw tighter fences around your emotional freedom. Thus you set up in yourself an inner system of tyranny in which you no longer feel yourself free. You may find outer hitching posts to blame for this self-restriction, but often even this outlet is no longer possible in your frantic struggle. Then you do not understand why you feel so constricted within yourself. In other words, you do not understand the inner tyranny that you have set up as a result of the constant abuse of your freedom to create, of your freedom to choose, of your freedom to direct your life, of your freedom to direct your thoughts, of your freedom to direct your feelings, of your freedom to direct your will.

With our knowledge of these basic categories and with our knowledge both of their divine meaning and of their abuse, let us now look inside of man and therefore inevitably outside. Let us observe how these laws apply in the smallest immediate surroundings, as well as on the largest scale of world government. How can this be integrated with and become part of politics in the New Age? What is your idea of politics in the New Age? Some of you have thought about it; some of you have had ideas about it. So let us be a little more specific.

New Age politics must, above all, always be carried by those who cultivate a channel to divine inspiration. Those who do not possess such a channel themselves cannot always judge whether or not this is so. This lack of perception may be due either to having a stake in not knowing because of selfish reasons, or it may really be innocent ignorance, if there is such a thing. But the more individuals are seriously motivated to choose their leaders according to this consideration, then the more such leaders will actually be chosen. How can you be sure with any specific leader is the question, especially without personal contact. Yet your inner inspiration is always at work in guiding both your intuitive faculties and your choice.

This choice is easier today than it was in former times. For one, the communication system enables you to gain more contact with and knowledge about such potential figures. You do not deal with public figures as was the case in the past, when no personal view existed. The technical advancements that made this possible are yet another facet of the maturing, the development of the entity mankind.

Today it is also easier to choose inspired leaders than it was in former times because both the energy and the power of the spreading Christ Consciousness are creating these channels all over. What is required is the courage to own up to them and also to own up to the difficulty of putting self-interest out of the way. For if self-interest stands first, then the channel is blocked.

When this is the primary concern, the primary undertaking, and the primary focus, then world politics in the New Age will contain every one of these systems. But not in contradiction, but as an integrating whole. It may sound impossible to you to imagine that a form of government can combine monarchy, feudalism, socialism, communism, and democratic capitalism. Yet it is so. For, as I outlined here, they all contain truth and they are not contradictory to one another. As you increasingly find out on your path, all these systems and all these apparent contradictions must blend harmoniously in the human personality for the fullest expression of creativity, of joy, and of fulfillment.

In fact I will say that if a world government -- or the inner government of an individual -- does not have the wisdom to contain every one of these systems in its positive manifestation, and in complementation with one another, then it cannot maintain the balance required for harmonious and full living. This government must be destroyed sooner or later. Is this not the case, over and over again, within the individual? Is not the struggling consciousness always straining to maintain, for example, an over-exaggerated independence and individualism at the expense of others, out of a fear to conform, out of a fear to lose its individuality? And is it not just as true, on the other side of the scale, that the lazy, demanding personality wants to be taken care of, wants to be given to in the easiest possible way? Such a personality wants to discharge only the minimal amount of rebelliously executed duty. It is full of resentment that anything at all is demanded in life, and by resenting it does it against its will. This is truly the act of an unruly child who needs a parent to discipline him. Do you not always find an area in your soul that proudly wants to use power and abundance and which does not care about others? All of these expressions exist in the soul of every human being in one form or another. They may not come to the surface, but if they do not, then they lie hidden and therefore have more power to indirectly affect both the person's life and his environment. If nothing else, they create a separating wall of loneliness that the person fears to break through. For, in order to break through it, one needs to face it, to deal with it, and to eliminate it, so that the divine channel can unclog itself.

It is thus with world politics in the New Age. Mankind is now going through these various phases and stages of development. Just as you as individuals who are involved in the process of purification find these aspects in you, so does mankind fluctuate from one form of expression of political life to another. In other words, it has to work its way through this until it is clear that one is not good and the other bad, or vice versa.

One of the greatest pitfalls for human understanding in every area when it tries to comprehend the universal truths and the cosmic reality of life in which you dwell is the following duality: "This is right and that is wrong." I have said this many times. Now I bring this principle to this topic. The New Age politicians must beware of embracing one form of government against another form of government. The nature of New Age politics will be precisely in not being partisan, not only within the country, but even as far as outer forms of government are concerned. The New Age politician's task is to represent all forms of government as the world knows them today in their divine expressions. This will and can happen if man opens his divine channel and if he sees the unity within the apparent contradiction.

This has already started in your community, where you combine monarchy, feudalism, communism, socialism, and capitalistic democracy. You combine them all. When you rebel against the one and you are in favor of the other, then you are already in distortion. Let that be a reminder to you so that you know that you are in distortion. Then look within yourself and ask: What part in you wants to make this distortion? Is it the lazy part in you that resents the authority and that wants to be a leader, but without paying the price for it? Or is it the envious part in you that refuses to earn what it envies? Or is it the powerful part in you that secretly wishes to abuse its power? Look at that part in you that may want to use one format against the other because something self-serving and negative is hidden.

When the format is appropriate, then there will never be a contradiction. Whatever problems arise will not be ascribed to the outer format or the expression of eternal, inner, divine principles. Instead, you will look at other levels of reality in order to seek the solution -- levels that contain very personal violations of truth, no matter how public the issue may be. Then one format will always have room for the other. The only way to attain this harmony and this unity of spirit both in the governmment of your community and in your own self-government -- in other words, the government of the intricate and manifold personality that you are -- is to totally surrender to the will of the Highest. Look at that aspect in you that holds back from this surrender, that blinds itself so as not to see that such a surrender would be in place in this or that specific issue and that refuses to make this surrender to the divine will. Then you will understand your obstructions.

Your community is growing fast. It needs more responsible pillars who know of this principle and who devote their life to being a divine channel. So those of you who wish to do this in every issue that comes up -- an issue that presents a problem either inwardly or outwardly, either in your feeling reactions or in the outer manifestations, or in both -- go into yourselves and ask: "Is there anything in me that anxiously holds back from allowing the will of God to manifest in this or that specific issue?" If you question yourself honestly, then you will get the answer from the way you feel. And then those of you who are more responsible for the government of your community will also become -- either directly or indirectly -- influential in creating New Age politics, and will disseminate the truths that I speak about here. Then you will eliminate the unnecessary division of one part going against the other, of one government going against the other, of one format going against the other -- thereby overloooking what the real issues are that create the problem. Only then will the divine reality be experienced in all those formats. You will also understand how every single divine reality can be distorted and abused.

When mankind reaches this approach to human problems, then a giant step in maturing will have been made. At the present time the number of people who see life in these terms is comparatively small. The majority of human beings still tend to say: "This attitude or this principle is right and the other is wrong. This format is good and the other is bad." The majority of human beings, especially in political life, still operate on the level of the mask self. And in one sense this is progress, in that in former times the general level was that of the lower self, which was crassly acted out -- by leaders as well as by followers. Nobody even bothered to conceal it. The individual, as well as the entity mankind, has to go through the curve of evolution. The mask becomes the first facet of the realization that the lower self is unacceptable and that it does not pay. Even if this happens in a self-serving and hypocritical way, then it is a temporary phase that is necessary until more maturity is being reached when the lower self can be identified and evaluated, which then makes the mask self superfluous. This is the only road to the higher self.

But you as individuals are beyond that and you are struggling to eliminate the mask self that is now the generally accepted rule and pretended necessity for political life and for politicians. You do not need to be in this frame of reference -- of the mask self and of the dualistic good vs. bad -- any longer. And what a relief and a liberation it is to find and to discern -- not only in your world view, but in your approach to life, in your approach to yourself, and in your approach to your relationships -- the beauty, the truth, the clarity, the love, and the rightness in each system and to see where and how much each is distorted. That is the evolutionary way into the New Age, which will reveal much greater truths than you can even dream of. But as long as this vision is not cultivated, then these truths cannot reveal themselves to you.

My dearest ones, perhaps you feel the immensely powerful currents of energy that you have created and with which you can build a beautiful new world. Every one of you is contained in the deepest of security. Everyone of you is under the guidance of the world of God. You are blessed.

June 2, 1976